Cold Mushroom Soup
by Cezille07
Summary: Soup was always just the sidekick. The no-brain assistant. A guy most easily associated with Ford. But we soon discover he's also a person with an able and proudly beating heart. Soup/Annie.


**Cold Mushroom Soup**

_Cezille07_

A Soup/Annie fic.

Disclaimer: I own Monster Allergy...issues 1 to 14! Ha! No, seriously, Monster Allergy doesn't belong to me (except for those precious comics I have...).

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You would look at the bowl and throw up. As if its contents had sit there for three days with no refrigeration, only to be heated quickly for cheap and immediate serving. It was good money, the cafeteria staff asserted; it was worth the money, good food. Good enough to die for, that is. At least five students came down with diarrhea in the past week, and in a few moments, one more boy would add to the list.

His head resting on his arms, crossed on the table, he looked wistfully at the young lady sitting diagonally across him in the same table. "Annie," he called tentatively.

"Yes, Soup? Have your heard from David yet?"

Soup turned away and scowled. David...the reason she was here, waiting. The reason he too was waiting—but he was sure once David arrived, he'd notice just the only reason he would even come to school at all. David and Annie, not the ideal couple, but a couple nevertheless.

Why can't he be a part of it?

But of course. Annie was too sane, too pretty, too smart. Those eyeglasses, despite making her the four-eyed Froggy he and Ford used to tease, accented those beautiful eyes hiding behind them. When she looked—correction, _glanced_, for she never really looked at him anyway—he felt like dissolving into the floor, or exploding into the nothingness beyond reality.

Yes, he was in love.

"I wish he'd be here sooner," she whispered, half to herself. She took out a notebook and pen and began scribbling something. "How 'bout you, Soup? What are you waiting for?" she asked absently.

Soup realized he didn't have an alibi. "I... I was... I'm waiting for David too," he stammered.

"But _we're_ going out. What are _you_ going to do?" Annie was looking at him now. "And you're always with Ford anyway. Where is he?"

"Doing something stupid, I suppose," he answered, with a little too much sarcasm. He exhaled, hoping Annie didn't notice. "Listen, Annie—" he paused. This was actually the first time he hadn't called Froggy. But then again, he had stopped that long ago when she first talked to him, not as David's lover but as an equal, a _friend_. No one had ever....

"What is it?" Annie closed her notebook. "You're flushed. Are you alright?" She reached out and put her hand on his forehead. "You might be sick."

"Really sick," he replied without thinking, if only to have her touching him like this. He took her hand with both of his and closed his eyes. "Annie, I wanted to tell you something," he gave, something in his chest on the verge of jumping out and eating him alive. But it was alright. Do it. All he had to do was tell her. Everything was alright. "Annie, I—"

"David!"

He abruptly awoke from his stupor and saw the hand was gone, the girl was gone. David was over at the main door, approaching them, Annie running to him with wide, open arms.

"Hey, Soup! Where's Ford?" called his master in good humor.

"I don't know where the heck he is," he said in an undertone.

"What did you say?" David came toward him, his fists balled and his eyes flashing dangerously. "Did you just answer back to me?"

"David, please no," Annie pleaded. "It won't get us anywhere. Let's go."

David shifted his look from Soup to Annie, his gait neither reassuring nor softening. "Fine." And he turned back without another word, Annie tailing behind to wave an apologetic goodbye.

Soup made to smile back when for the first time the pungent stench of rotting vegetables choked his nose. He saw the overturned bowl on the floor and cold mushroom soup bathing him unevenly.

"So this is how I taste like," he muttered. He coughed out the stale, dreadful liquid from his mouth and gathered his things. He had important things to do. He had to look for Ford.

***END***


End file.
